Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Friday, November 30, 2018

Kingo Hamada -- Run Thru The Night


The above is a pretty spectacular shot from the condo of my good friend in the Musashi-Kosugi neighbourhood. Unlike my aging area here in Toronto, Musashi-Kosugi is one of the young and growing areas west of Tokyo and I had the privilege of staying with my friend and his family for a few nights. There are a lot of good restaurants and shops and I think it's only 20 minutes away from Yokohama on the train.


Anyways, I wanted to start off my contributions for the final day of November 2018 by paying tribute to the evening in Musashi-Kosugi via Kingo Hamada's(濱田金吾)"Run Thru The Night" from his 1981 album, "Feel The Night". I've always liked the iconography for the album cover since I first glimpsed it in "Japanese City Pop"; it's a bit like LEGO after imbibing a few drinks.

"Run Thru The Night" will probably not be my favourite song by this City Pop/AOR veteran, but it's still a nice slice of urban contemporary with some sprinkling of funk and perhaps even a cameo of Steely Dan sensibilities. Hamada came up with the music but according to the Yamaha Music Holdings Entertainment site, it was a fellow by the name of John Helmes who came up with the words. I couldn't track this Helmes down on the search engines so I'm wondering if this is actually a Hamada pen name. In any case, "Run Thru The Night" has that nocturnal vibe of painting Tokyo red in the high-flying times of Japan.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.